Looking for a low-profile desktop gaming PC
Main constraint: The space it needs to fit in is 7¾ in (19.7 cm) high. Width and length aren't a concern.
Primary use: Gaming. Doesn't need to be top of the line or cutting edge. Most of what I play isn't very demanding, though I would like the option to play newer stuff if I find something that interests me.
Budget: Ideally less than $1500, but I do realize that I might have to pay out a bit more because I want something both pre-built and compact. $2000 is the hard limit.
Important: I am NOT interested in building my own PC. (Yes, I have done it before, including one that was in a compact case that was HELL to get right.)
Me being uninformed: This might be a silly question, but can I lay desktop towers down on their side? Any traditional tower isn't going to fit, but some of them are thin enough that, if put in landscape instead of portrait, they would. I've read conflicting things about this online, particularly regarding liquid cooling and airflow.
If anyone has any recommendations, I'd appreciate it!
Re: towers on their side:
If there is a side fan, then nope. But otherwise, it shouldn’t make a difference with airflow. So go for it.
If you get a water cooled system, there may be some issues. A prebuilt will use an all in one water cooler. If you set those up so the CPU block is the highest part, air bubbles can collect in there and cause performance issues. You can probably lay it down so that the motherboard is closer to the ground without issue, but it depends.
However for $1500, you probably won’t be finding many liquid cooled computers anyway.
If you don't plan on playing many demanding titles I would be inclined to recommend an AMD-based mini PC from Minisforum, Beelink, or GMKtec. AMD's integrated graphics have improved significantly over the years and can rival some lower-end dedicated GPUs at a lower cost. Just keep in mind Minisforum doesn't have the most stellar reputation for post-sale support.
I bought a Minisforum last year. It came with windows 11 but I replaced it with Linux mint. (I tried dual boot for a while but that didn’t work out and is a whole separate tale).
The specific model I got is Neptune HX99G. It was about $800 US. It’s smaller and cheaper and a little less powerful than OP wanted I think. It does have a separate Radeon 6600M GPU so it does better than an integrated.
Anyway it works fine for me as a general desktop that can run most games I’m interested in. It’s a little more powerful than a steam deck so for example it can run Elden Ring at medium settings.
I tried to get support when I was having the dual boot issue. They weren’t too helpful but to be fair I was using the system differently than they shipped it.
Edit: btw this thing is almost completely silent. I just make sure that it is on a rack that has good airflow on the sides where it vents.
I've read some pretty grim warranty stories about those brands, but especially minisforum, it's worth reading the minipcs subreddit to see people's complaints. I'd be very reticent spending serious computer money on them. They're probably fine for a htpc or some other light use, but not as a main machine, imo.
Another thing to keep in mind for mini-PCs is potential for fan noise. One of the main tradeoffs that come with their extremely compact form factors is reduced cooling abilities, meaning their fans have to work harder to keep the systems cool, as well as smaller fans which need to run at higher speeds to move an adequate volume of air and have more shrill sound profiles at all speeds.
It’s not a problem for everybody, though. If the noise is blocked out by speakers at high volumes or headphones for example it’s not going to matter much.
I think a regular prebuilt on its side is probably the better choice (assuming you're not blocking airflow), but another option would be a 4u rack mount case.
It's basically the exact size you're looking for, and would be designed for airflow through the front and back. I don't think there are many companies selling them configured for gaming, though, so you'd probably need to add your own graphics card to an otherwise premade model.
Another option which hasn't been highlighted is you can get a minipc + egpu
Just realized you're one of the other moonlight users here. Any thoughts to getting a PC to setup as a dedicated sunshine server somewhere else in the house and just setting up a mini pc in the small space which can be used for day to day stuff + moonlight client?
Update:
I'm holding off on the purchase for now (and the near-term future). I got sticker shock when looking into options, and I also don't NEED to replace my current aging setup currently, as it's still (mostly) working fine.
I appreciate all of the feedback people have given me here. It's given me a lot of different options to explore for when I finally do take the plunge.
What control scheme are you using? Would this be at a desk or HTPC/couch gaming?
I've been using Steam Link on an Apple TV more and more for controller stuff when I want a bigger screen or more oomph than a SteamDeck-like (connecting back to a desktop elsewhere in the apartment).
The PC is connected to the TV in my living room.
It’s primarily used to stream games to my other devices (Laptop, Deck, Tablet) via Moonlight, but I’ve also got a hard drive with Batocera set up on it that I can boot into to play light gun games with my Gun4IR setup.
I've had a bunch of miniITX systems, but my favorite was probably my NCase M1 that could (barely) fit a full size GPU at the time (was a Nvidia 980 Ti). It got very hot in there, but you could definitely get a modern midrange card in there no problem. They are still making cases. https://ncased.com/
I really wanted to recommend my Dan/LIAN-LI A4-H2O, but it is 240mm tall. I looked at but never pulled the trigger on your brand. Have heard good things.
I have also had a little Lian-Li mineITX case I just call "the lunchbox" because it had a little handle on top like an old school metal lunchbox. It was well made from a material quality perspective (like all Lian-li cases), but I had a card time keeping it cool even with just an integrated GPU. The grill on it had clearly been designed for looks first, with airflow with an after though. I don't see it on their site anymore, which isn't shocking. All their newer SFF/MiniITX cases look like they are designed for better cooling now which is nice.
Current consideration:
ASUS G22CH: it's up near the top of my price range, but it's only 4.53 in (11.5 cm) wide, so if I'm able to turn it on its side, then it'll fit easily.
Only problem I see is that it looks like both sides are used for airflow. If I turn it, could I just lift it up on risers so that there's air underneath it as well?
With 4.1cm clearance on both sides I would have to think it would be fine. It might help to have a negative pressure fan (outside the case) at the rear or in front of the unit just so there's not hot air building up in your desk.
Depending on your definition of "newer stuff" integrated chips have gotten pretty powerful in the last few years and plenty of them can play the latest Triple-A games on medium and sometimes high quality settings--depending mostly on how well the game is optimized (and if you limit the max resolution and FPS rendered... you don't need 4K right?). If you need a dedicated GPU you probably aren't going to get away with fanless* but if you can there are a lot of neat and cute low-profile options.
* Though there are some options:
Nope!
The only reason I want some heft to it is that I play with a multiplayer group, and sometimes we pick more demanding games. For example, Killing Floor 3 is on our horizon.
Would a cute mini build like the ones you and @sleepydave recommended be able to handle a game like that? It doesn't have to run beautifully, it just has to not choke.
What I do is as I'm comparing options I will google the CPU model and see what the underlying iGPU chips are and find benchmarks that compare with dGPU options.
For example "AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 igpu" --> I find this spec pdf and see it is Radeon 880M. Then I google "Radeon 880M Killing Floor 3" and I don't see a blog post or video that directly addresses it but I do see a video that plays the game with 8 different GPUs and I google different combinations of something like "gtx 1650 vs radeon 880m" until I find that GTX 1050 Ti is somewhat comparable in performance to the Radeon 880M. If the quality of the output is acceptable--it will render something similar just fine. But if you are sensitive to low fps then you'll probably want something that is a bit better than Radeon 880M for that game.
For me, I'll sacrifice some resolution and fps to increase other quality settings. 1080P and 24fps vsync looks just fine--but other people will disagree or they'll rather tradeoff something like FXAA instead of TAA so that they can render 4K or 100+fps, etc.
As long as your settings are dialed in, most video game "lag" comes from either asset streaming from storage or network latency. If the video pipeline can't keep up it will just drop a frame here or there.
I love that they managed to fit a full-width video card in there sideways. Make sure you get all the ram you want, because it only has 2 slots for laptop-sized ram modules.
If you have high speed internet, Pay for a Shadow.tech subscription instead. For $25-38/month you’ll have an extremely good full Windows desktop environment, in your current PC form factor, without building anything out having to upgrade anything.
$1500 / $37 (the costlier option) is roughly 40 months…so in a little over 3 years you’d be at your budget— but you’d still have a current PC. I haven’t come across a game that I don’t run max settings yet.
I use mine with my Mac mini to play windows only games. But I also use it for windows only software and some software dev stuff that is best tested on windows.
I don’t use it for my normal personal stuff….i use my computer for holding my documents or doing internet stuff or whatever. And I can just tab between the Shadow computer and my computer, and copy and paste across environments with no problem.
And theoretically I can bring this shadow subscription to other computers if I wanted. I think they have a whole thing for mobile gaming too though I haven’t done that.
Anyway…. That’s my pitch.
It looks like there are some neat little mini-pc's with discrete graphics these days.
Minisforum AtomMan G7 TI
ASUS ROG NUC 760
I suspect that they have laptop GPUs and sub-par cooling if you're going to shove them in a cabinet or something like that.
Just a quick thought before you pull the trigger: have you looked into cloud gaming instead?
I should have mentioned this in my post, but the PC's also going to be used for media streaming (a Jellyfin server), as well as a Batocera setup.
If you're doing retro gaming and media ripping, then it's possible you might have an optical drive which will play into your "tower on the side" discussion as most internal PC optical drives will not be designed for rotated use.
I don't believe this is the case for most modern DVD drives. They have 4 little tabs in each of the corners that will hold the disc in when placed vertically. Here's a picture of one. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/internal-dvd-drive-unit-isolated-white-background-cd-open-tray-copy-space-249516533.jpg
I bought one of these lenovo slim towers recently. It's the only smaller form-factor machine I could find at that price range that had 32 GB of ram, a 1 TB nvme, and a respectable processor. You can run it on its side without covering a vent, but there are no rubber feet, so it will slide around if you don't put something under it. I haven't tried gaming on it. And I don't know what the market looks like for low-profile video cards, but they do exist, if you need to upgrade. Fans are quiet when idling but can get loud under heavy load.
edit: You would need a video card to play a game like killing floor 3. See the game benchmarks at the bottom of this notebookcheck review of the integrated graphics chip. I would probably put one of these in there, but you'd have to make sure the power supply could handle it, and I'm not totally sure every low-profile card will come with a low-profile metal bracket, which is essential.
I've found for about 10$ I could get whatever low profile bracket I needed from eBay if it wasn't included.
Although if the card is held in place by gravity a CardKeeper might be enough. Those are probably NOS if they're actually in stock as it seems the manufacturer is out of business.
Maybe checkout the Zotac Zbox E series.
Dimensions: 210mm x 203mm x 62.2mm (8.27in x 7.99in x 2.45in)
The current gen comes with a 4070 laptop GPU (which unfortunately has only 8 GB of VRam). They list versions with two different CPUs, Intel Core i7-14700HX and Intel Core i7-13700HX but at least where I live only the latter seems to be available.